emotional structure, the transformational character arc, and developmental edits

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Thoughts from the Nano forum...

It’s kind of weird how I’ve been sucked into the Nano maelstrom. I love the craziness of it. The here for only a month--then gone forever. Like Brigadoon disappearing into the mist.

The boards slow as it gets closer to the first, but considering how many users are on-line, it’s not a surprise. Last year, Romance was a wasteland so I hung in the “alternative” and “plot realism” sub-forums.

This year--for some strange reason, the Divas have a tangible presence. I credit AJ. She’s all over the place. I simply poke, or tell people about RD in the hopes we get people in out of the cold. It’s a hard world for romance writers. There aren’t many genres where you get put down, side-lined and laughed at because you believe in happily ever after.

Umm, then again--there aren’t many genres where you get questions like “can you have a love story without love”, and then the person goes on to talk about A) how fake romance is, or B) how they have this story, but it’s really a multi-generational/multi-couple, multi-pov, no sex, lots of sex, literary treatise on divorce or it’s got penguins in it, really I sound like Anne Tyler, and maybe I’m in the wrong forum--oops excuse me while I get out of here. Like they think we’re going to mob them with feather boas and chiffon day-dresses or something.

Those old seventies stereotypes did us a lot of harm. People can’t look past Barbara Cartland and the Valeries. My working uniform is black and there are steel toes in my boots. I’d like a grenade launcher for Christmas, and I write romance.

The chocolate is a constant, though. Yo-hoo?? Chocolatier? Bring on the bonbons...